Testing of the " Fisher Divorce Adjustment Scale " Questionnaire for Russian Sample in Kazakhstan

The article presents the experience of adaptation of foreign questionnaire "Fisher Divorce Adjustment Scale). The substantiation of the necessity of testing the English version of the questionnaire for the Russian-speaking population, is living in Kazakhstan. This is due to primarily to the lack of this kind of instructional techniques and methods for psych diagnosis divorced people to help them in further need of psychological help in overcoming post-divorce crisis. Considers the organizational aspects of the Russian version of the test in compliance with the requirements of appropriate testing it was translated into the Russian language techniques. Describes how to create traditional primary forms of the questionnaire and its psychometric test. Analyzes the reasons for the low efficiency of the statements identified after analysis of the items, as well as some aspects of performance of psychometric characteristics of test.


Introduction
Currently, the domestic diagnostics has a very limited set of standardized personality tests, most of them are adapted versions of foreign methods.Similar situation in psych diagnostics is disimproved by the fact that most adaptations of foreign tests does not contain information about the methods and results of their psychometric validation.Some variants of personality questionnaires, which are valid in our country, are simple translation of foreign tests, without any statistical testing and adequate adaptation to the conditions of our culture.
The purpose of this article is to familiarize you with the experience of adapting foreign methods in compliance with all psychometric standards for example widely known abroad technique Fisher Divorce Adjustment Scale (FDAS) (Fisher, 2005;Limon, 2007).
The choice of this method for application in the Russian culture was due to the following reasons: First, throughout the life each of the person may be faced with difficult situations or events that require his extreme emotional outlays.The researchers call this special kind of situations as life crises (Burlachuk, 2002).These are a life changes, the consequences of which depend not so much on what is exactly going on, but on the perception and response on them (Burlachuk, 2002).The difficult situation and the experience are always associated with a particular event, and here significant event, of course, is divorce (Vasilyuk, 1995;Richardson, 1994;Ross, 1999).The situation of divorce is a difficult situation in personagens, which is inappropriate, unscheduled and is characterized by emotional breakup with the partner.
According to most researchers, divorce is a crisis, accompanied by a variety of affects and feelings (Figdor, 2006).This is primarily due to the fact that the decay of emotional relations is extremely difficult for the human experience and has serious destructive effect on his mental and physical condition (Gozman, 1982).As it was said by B. Blum, S. Usher and S. White, "there is no doubt about the connection between the disorganization of family relationships, on the one hand, and mental and emotional disorders on the other one" (Blum, 1978).Divorce directly injures spouses because it activates the old fears of separation and loneliness (Figdor, 1998).
It is obvious that the study of different functioning mechanisms of the individual in this critical situation is impossible without any appropriate diagnostic tools.Primarily it is about how the person adapts to the situation of divorce, what coping behavior strategies used to restore their psychological well-being.That is why the study and diagnosis are in particular interest, primarily for practical purposes.However, a significant obstacle in this kind of research on the Russian samples is the lack of reliable tools to diagnose a wide range of strategies to overcome the situation of divorce by former spouses.This is due to the fact that before the Soviet period in the practice of psychological assistance to the counseling of the families in the situations of divorce did not stand out as a special kind of work, because the problem was not considered as an urgent one.This happened not because there was no problem and experiences connected with it, but because of divorce was considered as a phenomenon that is not characteristic of the Soviet way of life.The couple, who tried to get a divorce even in the recent past, experienced the pressure of The Party, and could lose their jobs, etc. Therefore the question of assistance in this situation could hardly be raised.At the same time, foreign experience shows that people experiencing a divorce situation, need help at different levels (social, financial, physical, etc.).In Russia, and in Kazakhstan exactly, psychologists have begun to discuss the problem of providing psychological assistance to people in a divorce just recently (Shmorina, 2000).
Secondly, according to our analysis of present psychodiagnostic techniques showed the absence of such tools for the Russian sample, allowing to diagnose the psycho-emotional state of the former spouses.This is due to the fact that in the domestic science interest in the study of coping behavior of the family appeared just now, there are still many unexplored aspects and issues of family coping of the difficulties and the stress.(Belorukova, 2005).Also, unfortunately, it should be noted that divorce is becoming the norm for modern society, and for Kazakh society too, no matter how we were treated to this phenomenon, it is impossible not to be considered to this one.(Aron, 1995).
Precisely this was the reasons for our access to available English-language literature relevant to diagnostic techniques and methods.Among them the most famous and popular within English-speaking researchers is the Fisher Divorce Adjustment Scale (FDAS) (Fisher, 2005).
Further review of this questionnaire showed that, FDAS is a recognized method of determining the level of the individual adaptation to the divorce situation, with the help of what almost a million divorced people was tested who have divorced for the different lengths of time, from several months to several years.These studies have established the existence of high results correlation of FDAS' methods with other personality questionnaires, such as Minnesota multidimensional personality questionnaire (Limon, 2007).Furthermore, the total internal reliability score of the questionnaire according to Cronbach's alpha is 0.985 which is high for a personality test.Subtests assessments range from 0.87 to 0.95.Good external validity is also confirmed by obtaining feedback from the participants of the test.As an example, it can be considered one study, which was attended by 100 people.The core of the study was to conduct a seminar "The Rebuilding Sеminar" aimed primarily to post divorced former spouses adaptation (Fisher, 2005).After participating in this workshop, the participants were repeatedly tested with the help of a FDAS questionnaire in the next three years.The results showed higher overall scores according to the method after the first year of divorce.But the most important indicator of the questionaire validity was that the best results were obtained after three years of the divorce.This means that adjustment to divorce is a dynamic process, taking place over the next three years after a divorce.In addition, this study showed that participation in the recovery after breaking up seminar accelerates adaptation to postdivorced situation, while the divorced, who did not participate in the seminar, this process can drag on for years.
So, before you go directly to the main stages of adaptation of the Russian version questionnaire, let us say a few words about the method.

Method
Fisher Divorce Adjustment Scale (FDAS) was created by Bruce Fisher as an integral part of his doctoral dissertation at the University of Northern Colorado (Fisher, 1976).In 1978, Fischer updated his questionnaire (Fisher, 2005).
As mentioned above, initially FDAS was used as a psych diagnostic tool within the 10-week workshop called "The Rebuilding Sеminar" (recovery seminar), intended for people who have difficulties with adapting to post-divorced situation.If in the beginning of the workshop a questionnaire was used to assess the position of the partners in the divorce process, it was possible to determine the degree of elaboration of their experiences after passing by the participants of this workshop.
Currently FDAS is used as an independent psycho-diagnostic tool to obtain the necessary information to carry out a certain kind of scientific research.In addition, the FDAS' authors recommended to use a questionnaire to obtain reliable information about the strengths and weaknesses of their clients for therapists, consultants, mediators and lawyers who are the members of the divorce process.
So, the purpose of this questionnaire is to determine the relationships and feelings of people facing the end of their romantic relationships (Limon, 2007).
FDAS consists of 100 statements aimed to identifying the strengths and weaknesses of post-divorced adaptation of divorcees.Responses to the statements are evaluated on a 5-point scale (almost always, usually, sometimes, rarely, almost never).It can be used both direct and reverse keys for scoring.
All statements are grouped in the following scales and subscales: • Scale of Adjustment to ending of love relationship.
• Subscale of Feeling of Self Worth.
• Subscale of Disentanglement from Love Relationship.
• Subscale of Feeling of Self Anger.
• Subscale of Symptoms of Grief.
• Subscale of Rebuilding Social Trust.
• Subscale of Social Self Worth.
The most important indicator of the success/failure of diluted adaptation to post-divorced situation is the scale of (Adjustment to ending of love relationship), scores of which are obtained by simply summing the scores of all subscales.

Stages of Testing Methods
This work began in 2012 after a visit of Professor Mеn Chung at the al-Farabi Kazakh National University.The initial phase of work was the finding out the question of who is the owner of this technique.There is often one opinion in our science that such person is, first of all, the author of the test.In part, this is a true statement, but until he sells his law to the publishing company.After this, all rights belong to them and all negotiations should be conducted with its leaders accordingly.The author retains only copyright, but may not use it for commercial purposes, including to permit its adaptation to foreign specialists.According to our problems for determining who is the legal owner of the FDAS questionnaire we contacted with the head of the Divorce Center Jerry Zimer, who advised to contact with the publishing house Impact Publishers Inc.Then, the publisher Jean Trumbull redirected our request to the members of the family of Bruce Fisher, who are the owners of this technique after the death of the author since 1999.
After that we purchased a test kit in the original language, including a manual describing the whole procedure of its creation, execution and interpretation of the test results, the text of the questionnaire and registration form, as well as exemplary embodiments of the answers filling.
The next adaptation stage of the method was the questionnaire and manuals translation into Russian.If the translation of the guidelines presented no problems, the translation of the text of the questionnaire required the observance of certain rules.Among professionals who have no concern to the adaptation techniques, there is an erroneous opinion on the adequacy of conventional translation techniques on English language and elimination of gross errors for later use.However, global practice dictates a completely different, more complicated procedure of this adaptation stage.In the Patriotic psych diagnostics this procedure was used by U. L. Khanin when he created a Russian version of the Ch.Spielberger questionnaire (Burlachuk, 2006).It includes the following activities: 1) Preparation of the primary translation test from a source language into another one.This procedure should be made by person who is fluent in both languages (bilingual) and, preferably, who has psychological education.On the one hand, this procedure does not cause additional problems because of their concreteness and clarity, but, on the other hand, can create difficulties, one of the reason of which is that "every questionnaire psychometric study of the original, makes you consider it untouchable" (Burlachuk, 2003).
In world practice there are two types of translation: symmetric and asymmetric.Symmetric translation implies the preservation of approval, and a familiar, conversational style.Asymmetric transfer is aimed to retain the fidelity of any language, usually the language of the original, focusing on the accuracy of the meaning and wording of the translation.As a rule developers involved in adaptation, focused on asymmetric transfer to remain faithfulness to the original.The result of this activity is rather clumsy design from the lexical point of view.It was fairly mentioned by L. F. Burlakoti, that aims at understanding the meaning of the test claims more important than the diagnosis of relevant personal characteristics (Burlachuk, 2003).
2) Expert meaningful evaluation of translation involves the adaptation of the vocabulary and grammar of the language to the age and level of education of the General population for which the test is designed.The most serious differences between the original and the translation are eliminated at this stage.We should pay attention to cultural features and other life aspects of that society where the original test was created.
3) Checking the equivalence of the translation.This phase involves the correlation of the received questionnaire translation with amended lexical and grammatical plan to the original.The specific procedure for this calibration is the reverse translation from another language to the original one.This translation, in our opinion, should be carried out by another team of bilingual interpreters with psychological preparation, that weren't in the first phase.
This procedure was used when we created the Russian-language version of the FDAS' questionnaire.As the specialists were persons with basic psychological education and fluent in Russian and English languages.we have compiled the label for each of the statement claims in the English language, its initial Russian translation and reverse translation from Russian into English.However, we have not made a literal translation, expressed in full coincidence of terms.It was possible to use synonyms when the reverse translation from Russian into English, if they accurately reflect the meaning of the claims and the style of its presentation.From the point of view of available experience in the world such a reverse translation from one language into another language can be carried out several times, to match the original and a translation test.It was made by us.

Analysis of the Questionnaire Items
After reaching the translation equivalence and the questionnaire original for the next step, according to Yu.L. Khanina, we would have to collect new normative data on Kazakhstan sample.
After establishing the equivalence of the translation of the FDAS questionnaire to the original language, we carried out the analysis of the test items, which showed high distinctiveness of the claims.It was used Cronbach's α-coefficient to check the reliability of the questionnaire, which compares the variance of each item with the total variance of the entire scale.If the scatter of test results less than the scatter in the results for each individual question, therefore, every single question aimed at the study of the same characteristic, property, or phenomenon.Thus, they produce a value that can be considered as true.
This procedure was conducted on a sample consisting of people who are divorced or are in the process of divorce, aged 20 to 60 years.63 women and 27 men.The total number of surveyed was 90 people.
Statistical analysis of the obtained data on all indicators of the Russian version of this questionnaire are shown in table 1.According to the literature, acceptable in this case it can be considered such reliability and internal consistency, which exceed the values in the range of 0.65 -0.80.
As shown in table 1 standardized Cronbach's α-coefficient for almost all of the scales shows rather high values, except for the scales of "Rebuilding Social Trust" and "Social Self Worth".
Table 1.Indicators of reliability of the Russian version questionnaire of "Scale adjustment to divorce B. Fisher"
Adjustment to ending of love relationship 0,840 So for the scale of (Rebuilding Social Trust) α-Cronbach is 0.753, which is within the permissible values.As seen from Table 2, the reliability index on the given scale are closer to the lower limit of acceptable values.
The most vulnerable were approval number 62 ("I am afraid of sexual intimacy with another person)), № 63 ("I feel wealthy as a love partner") and number 88 ("I feel uncomfortable even at the thought of sexual relations").
As shown by further analysis the causes of such values is the presence of social and cultural differences between Russian and English samples.As seen from the above statements is most clearly manifested precisely in these differences of sexual relations.
It can be assumed that this is due to the "taboo" of this issue in our society that does not allow people to show their relevance to the topic of sexuality in general openly, and sex after divorce particularly.On a scale of (Social Self Worth) reliability indices were significantly below the acceptable (α-Cronbach 0.49), which also led to the need for further work on its adjustment.As seen from Table 3, all the assertions of this scale have low value in terms of internal consistency.This scale is designed to determine the relationship of man to the social evaluation of its status changed after the collapse of the marriage relationship.It manifests itself primarily in the willingness to discuss this fact with other people, in maintaining relationships with old friends, in the feeling of the comfort from involvement in new social connections.According to the author, this is partly due to the adoption of a person in end of his/her love relationships.

Results of the Questionnaire Testing Explanation
In our view, such low values of reliability and internal consistency on this scale can be explained by the following reasons, firstly, it may be due to the presence of social and cultural differences between Russian and English samples.It is the presence of so-called continuum "collectivism/individualism" defined for the people of a particular culture the importance of social evaluation of their behavior, that focused on socially approved behavior, etc.In this case it is appropriate to assume that the Russian-speaking sample living in Kazakhstan, located closer to the pole of collectivism, change their status after the divorce, and as a consequence, a change in social attitudes toward them, strengthens traumatic experiences.This reason determines the reluctance of divorced participated in our study, discuss this issue, as reflected in the low values of reliability according to the scale.
The second reason was connected with bad translation of some claims (inaccuracy in conveying of meaning) or noncompliance with the stylistic rules of the Russian language.An example is the statement "I feel more as free man, than married".This translation was not quite successful, because in everyday Russian language would be more appropriate the using of the word "single" or "unmarried" instead of "free", because the use of the word "free" is typical for other kinds of speech constructs.
Finally, a third reason for the low reliability of some of the claims was numerical predominance of women in our study.For example, the statement "I can easily tell people about parting with my partner" probably does not reflect the attitude of women to the rupture of relations, because of their emotions, women are not able to perceive the divorce in a relatively balanced and calm manner.

Checking the Internal Consistency of the Items
The next stage of the testing of the Russian FDAS version questionnaire was to check the internal consistency of the questionnaire.With this purpose, we used r Pearson correlation analysis, the results of which are presented in Table 4.
The analysis showed a high degree of consistency of questionnaire all scales to each other.So, feeling of Self Worth is positively correlated with disentanglement from love relationship (r=mean HDI of 0.531 (p<0.001);woth feeling of Self Anger (r=0,439 p<0.001); with Symptoms of Grief (r=0,824 p<0.001); with Rebuilding Social Trust (r=0,714 p<0.001); with Social Self-Worth (r=0,771 p<0.001).
The symptoms of grief also have a positive correlation with the rebuilding of social trust (r=0,783 p<0.001); with the social self-worth (r=0,699 p<0.001).
The rebuilding of social trust is positively correlated with social self-worth (r=0,620 p<0.001).
In the next phase of our future work on the testing of the Russian version of the FDAS questionnaire, after removing the "not responding" claims and re-analysis of test points on a more representative sample, we plan to carry out a full psychometric validation of the methodology with the calculation of re-test reliability and as well as the criterion and construct validity.

Discussion
In general, it should be noted that psychological diagnosis of the families presents certain difficulties due to the influence of several factors.Firstly, they are due to the complexity of the family as a social system, which includes individuals of different generations having their psychological characteristics who are in constant interaction with each other.Secondly, the complexity of the family is due to the lack of unified diagnosis approach to the understanding of the family problems, their nature and structure.As already mentioned above, there is still no single scientific definition of the family, understanding of its functions, structure and dynamics of development.Furthermore, the diagnosis of family relations is significantly complicated by the intimate nature of most of the processes occurring in it (Filippov, 2003).
Summarizing above mentioned, it should be noted that currently, due to the almost complete absence of such studies, it is not possible to allocate any specific research position to the impact of divorce on personality, his/her health, mental health, etc. (Оbozov, 1982).In this connection, it is rather actual judgment of C. Gaydis who carried out the analysis of American research on the topic of "Man after divorce' where are shown non-representative nature of the results of foreign studies for our reality (Gaydis, 1985).
It implies the need from the above mentioned to conduct such research on the Russian samples, living in Kazakhstan, for receiving of representative scientific data.As well known, the study of different mechanisms of functioning of the individual in this critical situation is impossible without the appropriate diagnostic tools.Therefore, conducting this kind of research is interesting, primarily for practical purposes.However, a significant obstacle for this kind of research on the Russian samples is the lack of reliable tools to diagnose a wide range of strategies to overcome the situation of former spouses divorce.
We conducted the study that made an attempt to overcome the existing situation of the lack of psych diagnostic techniques and methods for working with divorced people.For this purpose we have carried out testing of the FDAS questionnaire in accordance with all requirements of reliability and validity of psych diagnostic instruments, which required considerable time.Generally the procedure-testing of the questionnaire in compliance with all requirements took about 7-8 months.That is how much time it took for the primary translation test from a source language into another language, for checking the equivalence of translation, for a meaningful evaluation of this translation.
Moreover, for the implementation of this work different teams of psychologists bilingual, fluent in English and Russian languages were involved in.Search and attraction to the study of such specialists were also accompanied by certain difficulties due to their employment and lack of time to implement such kind of work.In addition, there was a subjective interpretation in understanding the meaning translated into Russian claims that led to the need of finding the most optimal equivalent for each of the one hundred questionnaire statements.
Only after this, a rather time-consuming, but, in our opinion, the most important part of the procedure-testing of the questionnaire, we began the second phase of its work the verification of such psychometric characteristics of the questionnaire as reliability and internal consistency of all its points.As shown by this test, we obtained high internal consistency for all items of the questionnaire, except for the scale of "social worth", that, as we see it, is due to the presence of certain socio-cultural differences between English and Russian samples.

Conclusion
We plan to continue testing the questionnaire for Kazakhstan sampling not limiting to use it only for the Russian samples, in Kazakhstan.In the future we intend to implement testing of the questionnaire for Kazakh language sample, this will enable us to identify certain cultural specific features of divorced, that is manifested in their attitudes toward divorce, in their use of certain coping strategies with post-divorced crisis situation, etc.
In addition, research has shown that culturally specific features of family interaction, in the role behavior of family members, and especially spouses, can affect harmonious functioning of the family.That can lead to the emergence of such non-normative family crisis like divorce.
So, we conducted study (Slanbekova et al., 2012) the purpose of which was to identify cultural factors of family role structure.Here were found significant differences in the presence and characteristics of such an important parameter family system, external and internal boundaries.So, the weakness of the external boundaries of the family system in Kazakh families shows that family members have many contacts with the external environment, but few relationships within the family system.In addition, the weakness of internal borders, especially between parent and child subsystems, can attest to the fact that spouses suffer from a lack of intimacy, because they can operate only in parental roles, losing marital relationship.This circumstance leads to weaken the marital relationship, and leads to their rupture.
It should be noted that conducting such kind of cross-cultural research will contribute to the creation of new programs and diagnostic algorithms using adaptive and reliable diagnostic tools.In this case we suggest our proven questionnaire.In General, this will give new opportunities to improve the quality of social and psychological assistance to families experiencing post-divorced situation.
And in conclusion, we would like to emphasize the importance of conducting this kind of work with divorced people.And here we agree with O. V. Golusova that considered in her studies the problem of loss, understanding it as the loss of a loved one as a result of various events.In her opinion, divorce, separation from a partner is a particular case of loss, followed by a human crisis.This crisis may have an impact on various spheres of personality and manifested in different ways (Galustova, 2007).
So, O. V. Galustova highlights these manifestations of the crisis associated with loss, as depression, apathy and indifference to everything; the decrease in vitality; isolation, "care of itself"; the feeling of loss of meaning of life; suicidality in speech or behavior; the aggravation of the old and new somatic diseases with psychological nature; frequent change of moods from hyperactivity to hypomania; increased emotional irritability, aggressiveness, conflict; untidiness due to the unwillingness to care for him/herself, up to the neglect of everyday hygiene (Galustova, 2007).
Divorce is accompanied by the experience of relationships loss, perceived as a symbolic death of the relationship, the usual way of life, attitudes, and norms associated with your social status, way of life before the divorce.For experiencing the loss due to divorce, separation partners are characterized by the same phase, as an experience of loss in connection with the death of a loved one.There are distinctive features of this process, reflected in the specificity of emotions, feelings and actions at every stage.
Specific features of the stages of the experience of loss in a divorce are negative, characterized by devaluing the importance of the events through the mechanism of rationalization.Also bitterness directed at former spouse, partner is the peculiar feature for divorced, which is a kind of protection from emotional pain.These and other specific manifestations of post-divorced syndrome, such as guilt, depression require the provision of divorced spouses with qualified psychological assistance, which is impossible without preliminary psych diagnostic work, allowing to define some of the divorced person's difficulties adjusting to their changed status.

Table 2 .
Calculation of reliability index using Cronbach's coefficient for the scale of the "social trust restoration"

Table 3 .
Calculation of reliability index using Cronbach's coefficient for the scale of (Social Self Worth)

Table 4 .
Indicators of correlation analysis of the Russian version of the "B.Fisher scale adjustment to divorce "questionnaire worth